Press - Living (martha stewart) - June '08

Spring glassware

When we bring in new vases to fill our shelves I know that Spring is just around the corner. Their height and color always brings a new perspective to Cursive. I love how the sunlight streaming in through, the Broadway window, highlights the glass.


We bid adieu to these decanters on Friday...

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Here is a peek at the new "raindrop" vases...

and a full shot of them!

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John Derian paperweights and trays in a variety of sizes have returned.


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A new still life, created by one of Cursive's owners, shows a trio of tall bottle-shape vases and small "tube" top (white stem) small vases from Portland, OR. The "sea turtle" tray, is on its way to Toronto, after being bought Saturday morning for a late wedding present.


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A 14K gold plate whale fits in nicely with a pair of gold porcelain pears and an amber-colored fern decanter. A glass soy sauce dropper, on the right, gently disappears in the corner.

A bird with a wishbone

At the beginning of April, I met a wonderful woman, who was shopping in Cursive. I photographed her sweater because of the black patent leather bird stitched onto the front of it. What really caught my eye, was the wishbone antique pin, placed at the bird's beak to complete the look!

A free spirit.

A Jeanine Payer necklace was worn out on the neck of a woman who bought it for herself as a an early birthday present. The seagull signaled a free spirit and the quote on the back of the pendant says "The spirit is the true self".

This customer reminded me that I had photographed her in leg warmers about a year ago.

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I bumped into a customer of ours in Union Square and as we talked
the texture in this necklace, nestled against the knitted scarf, caught my eye.

Bags, tattoos and skateboards...

(On the left): An olive green canvas bag with twisted rope handles, by Comme des Garcons, with white moccasins and (on the right): an Orla Kiely fan carrying the orange stem print tote (I love this style) with matching shoulder bag!

Here's the full-length shot!

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I was fascinated by this tattoo placed on the inner part of this guy's arm.
It is an Amish butter print from a pyrex mixing bowl.

This guy was also carrying this great canvas bag that he designed.
I love the hardware and the way it lays flat against the body.


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A Tree of Life tattoo, worn by a young woman, who will be moving to NYC soon.


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Max has some great style. I love the shoulder strap across his chest matching the direction of the blue stripes of his tie. I especially love the negative strip on the underside of his skateboard.


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It really is the little details that catch my eye whether it is in an outfit, how a customer puts together a few Cursive items or in the stitching of a bag.

The stripes of this woman's shirt was a breath of fresh air.
The softness of her camel-color sweater brought coziness.
Her shiny, black ,quilted jacket with stitched butterflies was all about style.


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I saw this bag and immediately started gushing. It was just beautiful. I can't say specifically what made me gush so, but for this bag, I think it was the mixture of the black patent leather with the brown leather trim and maybe the woman's outfit too. Everything seem to be pulled together by this bag. YUM!

quirkiness and "not normal"...

I was just reading a post on Three Potato Four on how there are some "not normal" vocabulary & phrases that their daughter has learned from them... It occurred to me that we all have a way of "not normal"-ness...

Mine is a combination of complete quirkiness with a unique way of using words that sound grammatically correct but are in fact the MK way of speaking... You will have to stop in Cursive to catch it!

The quirkiness comes into play, especially at Cursive, when something FAB-U-Lissss catches my eye:

1st off - I gush
2ndly - I say "WAIT, I have to get my camera and photograph this..."
3rdly - I tell the person (s) that this will be going up on Cursive's blog, their bag, jacket, jewelry etc... will be having their 15 seconds of fame and then give them our business card... to check out the post in a few days... I must say I've met some wonderful people this way.

However the past few days I have been camera-less so without images...

1. A woman with layered blond-hair wearing a dark navy velvet jacket buttoned with brown leather buttons, that I knew immediately was the J.Crew jacket I had been coveting but completely missed buying. The woman confirmed that it was by J.Crew and that it was the most comfortable jacket to wear and perfect for this Spring-like weather. Hanging from her right shoulder, was a very large dark teal tote in patent leather. She just moved back to Santa Monica and was commenting on how she had not been able to find stores like Cursive in the Los Angeles area, let alone, in Santa Monica. I emailed her the name of Sugar Paper that I discovered in Lucky Magazine's "shopping trip" feature on L.A. stores.

2. A new Orla Keily bag was hanging off a wrist of a young woman. Cute and spring-like pattern matched the Saturday ambiance we were experiencing.

Observations and repeat customers...

It seems to be that time of year when we see repeat customers shopping in Cursive once again. It all began this morning:

1. A German woman, who has her own special events company, and lives both in Hamburg and the Netherlands, bought one of the large Apuura photo albums with a Central Park map and the surrounding streets hand-stitched to the cover as a gift. She will put photos of her trip to NYC in the album and give it to her boyfriend.

2. Two women dressed so colorful and creative, (sorry, no photos this time, as my mother took back her digital camera for her sisters trip), were from Holland and they bought up a variety of paper and journals for inspiration. I recognized them from the very cool "folding shopping bags on wheels" to carry all their purchases. Similar to this one:




3. A woman from Connecticut bought the Jeanine Payer Francesca bracelet with Aquamarine, "The spirit is the true self" - Cicero. She mentioned purchasing a bracelet last year with her husband to celebrate their wedding anniversary. I remembered her first and last name and that she was thinking of having the bracelet shortened if it was too big and this was a year ago since I had seen her! It's amazing to re-live an interaction with a customer.

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Observations:

4. We had an Orla Kiely moment when two of her bags on the shoulders of two customers looking in opposite directions passed each other. It would have been a great photo... if only I had my camera...

5. Thank goodness we have some air-conditioning inside. Today it was 73 degrees at least in our corner. Quite refreshing after having some very hot days on the 1st floor last week.

6. Tribeca Film Festival is showing some movies at the Loews movie theater next door so 19th street (between Broadway & Park Avenue South) is cleared of any parked cars for the next few weeks and white tents and police barricades have been placed outside to curb crowds... Someone said that Scarlett Johansson was shopping on the 3rd floor this afternoon.